Intelligence Collection (Paperback)

This comprehensive book by one of the foremost authorities in the field offers systematic and analytical coverage of the "how and why" of intelligence collection across its three major stages―the front end (planning), collection, and the back end (processing, exploitation, and dissemination). The book provides a fresh, logical, and easily understandable view of complex collection systems used worldwide. Its ground-breaking organizational approach facilitates understanding and cross-INT collaboration, highlighting the similarities and differences among the collection INTs. The first part of the book explains how the literal INTs―open source, human intelligence, communications intelligence, and cyber collection―work. The second part focuses on nonliteral or technical INTs including imagery, electronic intelligence, and measurements and signatures intelligence. All chapters use a common format based on systems analysis methodology, detailing function, process, and structure of the collection disciplines. The third part is a complete chapter discussing the complexities of collection management in the United States. Rich, full color illustrations accompany the text with examples throughout the book on topics as diverse as battlespace situational awareness, terrorism, weapons proliferation, criminal networks, treaty monitoring, and identity intelligence.

Robert M. Clark has more than five decades of U.S. intelligence community experience. A USAF lieutenant colonel (retired), Dr. Clark served as an electronics warfare officer and intelligence officer. At the CIA, he was a senior analyst and group chief responsible for developing analytic methodologies. He was cofounder and CEO of the Scientific and Technical Analysis Corporation, a privately held company serving the U.S. intelligence community. Clark holds an SB from MIT, a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, and a JD from George Washington University. Beyond analyzing wicked intelligence issues, his passion is writing on the topic of intelligence. His books include Intelligence Analysis: A Target-Centric Approach (5th edition, 2016), The Technical Collection of Intelligence (2010), and Intelligence Collection (2014). He is coauthor, with Dr. William Mitchell, of Target-Centric Network Modeling (2015) and Deception: Counterdeception and Counterintelligence (2019); and coeditor, with Dr. Mark Lowenthal, of Intelligence Collection: The Five Disciplines (2015). Dr. Clark also develops and teaches courses for audiences in academia, national intelligence, and the military. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University teaching graduate courses.